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The Price Is Right, but Confusing
Scientific American: You’re in the supermarket picking a breakfast cereal. Will it be cinnamon raisin or oats ‘n honey? Hard to decide? What if I told you they both cost the same, would that make it easier? Well, a new study suggests it would not. Because researchers have found that uniform pricing actually accentuates the differences between products, which makes it harder to choose. The results appear in the journal Psychological Science. [Jongmin Kim, Nathan Novemsky and Ravi Dhar, Adding Small Differences Can Increase Similarity and Choice] Read the whole story: Scientific American
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Why Not Apologizing Makes You Feel Better
NPR: To err is human. So is refusing to apologize for those errors. From toddlers and talk show hosts to preteens and presidents, we all know people who have done stupid, silly and evil things, then squared their jaws and told the world they've done nothing wrong. Parents, educators and even public relations flacks have talked at length about the value of coming clean, and there is abundant research on the psychological value of apologizing. But psychologists recently decided to take a new tack: If so many people don't like to do it, there must be psychological value in not apologizing, too. In a recent paper, researchers Tyler G.
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Le liti danneggiano i bimbi pure se dormono (Disputes harm children even if they sleep)
La Stampa: I litigi di mamma e papà danneggiano il benessere dei bambini. Questo si sapeva. Non tutti sanno che danneggiano anche i neonati, e la novità è che danneggiano i neonati anche quando dormono. Si è infatti scoperto che le discussioni in casa tra genitori hanno un effetto sulla funzionalità del cervello del bebé durante il sonno. Lo dimostra uno studio promosso da Alice Graham, Phil Fisher e Jennifer Pfeifer dell’Università dell’Oregon. La ricerca ha analizzato la funzionalità cerebrale di un gruppo di venti neonati dai sei ai dodici mesi durante il sonno in risposta a diverse stimolazioni vocali: voci molto arrabbiate, leggermente arrabbiate, felici e neutre.
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Meditation Is About More Than Inner Peace, Study Says
Boston Magazine: People who practice meditation often do so for individual health benefits like reduced stress and improved mental health. But new research from Northeastern University’s Social Emotions Group says meditation also has an effect on the way we treat the people around us. David DeSteno, a psychology professor at Northeastern, set out to study the social and interpersonal benefits of meditation, specifically its impact on compassion toward others. DeSteno and his team, whose research is set to be published in the journal Psychological Science, split three dozen people into two groups: one that completed an eight-week meditation training program, and one that did not.
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Smile and the world smiles back. Can looking at faces lower aggression?
The Guardian: Before I started my PhD, I worked as a "research assistant". That's a fancy title for an academic dogsbody; well, it can be. I was lucky and had some great bosses in the five years I had that job, but sometimes it can involve menial tasks like data entry, or running experiments you think are a complete waste of time. One such experiment, that I was asked to run by my boss while we waited for ethics approval on another study, was published last week in the journal Psychological Science. Shows what I know!
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science. Common DNA Markers Can Account for More Than Half of the Genetic Influence on Cognitive Abilities Robert Plomin, Claire M. A. Haworth, Emma L. Meaburn, Thomas S. Price, Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, and Oliver S. P. Davis Although past research has shown that cognitive ability is heritable, it has proved difficult for genome-wide association studies to identify the genetic variants that account for this heritability.
